(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
Keep the image and meaning of The Moon in mind as you develop a story. But go beyond the card — don’t stress about any aspects you “should” include. The card is just a tool to prompt ideas. You can take it anywhere. Write a spellbinding tale.
First line prompts
- They say the moon gets a little farther from the earth every day.
- “Who in their right mind would want to go to the moon?” she asked, her eyes still red from crying.
- The howling was less frequent now.
Continue the scene for another 500 words, in any direction you wish to take it. Change to third or first person or switch genders as you see fit. Make this an opening to a longer work or a complete flash fiction.
Setting Prompt
Your story takes place on a moonlit night. Dogs howl. Claws scuttle. Dangers lurk. Your main character has places to get to, but the way is dark. Are those ruins in the distance? Is that a path to follow?
Tarot-lovers with another preferred deck can use that to inspire their setting prompt — maybe it’s raining, or you’re at the edge of the sea. Or you can disregard the image of the card and come up with your own moonlit landscape. Maybe even a lunar landscape. Or some other planet’s moon.
Remember the meaning of The Moon, but go beyond the card itself to imagine this dimly lit world.
Consider the time and place. Is it here and now? Urban or rural? A post-apocalyptic island? Is this Spring, Winter, or sweltering summer? Is dawn about to break on an alien planet? Or has the moon just risen on a pack of wolves in Siberia? Or maybe it’s a painting of a moon in an artist’s hovel, a moon she dreams of but can never see because the sky is so polluted now. There are no limits to your fictional setting — get a little moonstruck with it.
Someone is outside in the moonlight. Describe the dimly lit world they pass through.
Planners can do a setting sketch — time and place, five senses, maybe a map, and notes on what might happen here.
Pantsers can write a paragraph or three, as a character creeps through the moonlit land, searching for something without being seen.
Genre Prompt
Love or horror, your choice.
Write an opening scene that features the moon and make it over-the-top genre fiction.
Maybe the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie and leads to declarations of love.
Or maybe the moon hits your skin like a supernatural transformative trigger that leads to a gory eruption of hair, teeth, and claws.
Get a little loony with it. Trust your instincts and write us a scene to remember. Create a moon that has a radical impact on your characters. Make every word choice drip with your chosen genre. Leave the reader trembling with yearning or terror.
Happy writing!
Images on this page are by the following artists: Banner, left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti (also shown in the box below); Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington.
Catherine Austen 